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Australia aim for a comfortable victory and a semi-final spot at the 2017 Rugby League World Cup on Friday night when they take on Samoa in Darwin.

Defending champions Australia appear set to sail into the World Cup semi-finals as they prepare to duel with Samoa on Friday night in Darwin.

The Kangaroos were clinical across their three group games, conquering England, France and Lebanon, only conceding a combined 10 points. It was as comfortable as it could have been for the Aussies, and that trend should continue on into the quarter-finals.

Mal Meninga has picked a full-strength line-up after resting players in the wins over France and Lebanon, with Michael Morgan winning the race for the No. 6 jersey over Cameron Munster and set to partner Cooper Cronk in the halves.

While Australia advanced out their group with ease, Samoa really struggled. In fact, the Samoas reached the knockout stages without winning a match - compared to Ireland, who won two matches but were eliminated in the group.

Samoa were disappointing in limp defeats to New Zealand and Tonga, while they were arguably worse in a 14-all draw with a depleted Scotland last weekend, with that result putting them through to the last eight on points differential.

If Samoa could only put 14 points on a poor Scotland outfit, then surely they have no chance of scoring enough to even come remotely close to troubling the Australians.

This clash had potential pre-tournament, but the Samoans haven’t been able to click so far in the competition. More likely than not, this will result in another easy win for the Kangaroos.

Stats

This is the third meeting between the two nations

Australia won 66-10 at the 2000 World Cup and 44-18 in the 2014 Four Nations